A year ago we scuttled out of Afghanistan. We abandoned the aim we and the Americans had proclaimed so noisily of bringing Afghanistan into the twenty-first century so that the Taliban could never triumph again. We left behind many Afghans who had helped us at the risk of their lives.
To most of the world it was obvious that the Americans and their allies had been comprehensively defeated. Our own politicians, generals, diplomats, spies and aid advisers have been tumbling over one another to distance themselves from the mess. At first they tried to argue that it was too soon to reach such a depressing conclusion. After all, the Taliban had promised the Americans that they would no longer harbour international terrorists. A reformed Taliban would run a regime more in accordance with our ideas of human rights. Some of our expensive reforms would stick. Would that not be a kind of success?
We reinforced failure for another decade, until we finally learned that pouring money into a very poor country simply fuels corruption
That feeble argument was never going to wash.
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